Chapter Six—Kelly Plays Her Part--Maybe Too Well

     It didn’t take a genius to figure out my next move--hightail it out to the Atkins place and let them know of Perry’s plans. I had thought about going and talking to the town deputy, Clint Bailor, because Kelly had said he was pretty honest, but I decided against it. The fewer people that knew what Perry had brewing, the better. If his intentions were broadcast widely enough, he’d have to put them on hold. But that was all he would do—put them on hold. It would be best to bring this whole matter to a head as soon as possible and resolve it one way or another.
     I didn’t know where the Atkins’ house was, but they only had a quarter section of land so it shouldn’t be too hard to find. I simply returned to where I had seen Kelly the day before and worked in the direction from whence she had come. There was a path and I found the house fairly easily. It was a small, simple wooden structure, but it looked sturdily built. Kelly was out front feeding chickens and I could see a man—Fred Atkins, I presumed—at the corral in back repairing a saddle.
     Kelly gave me a cautious smile. “Hi. I didn’t really think you’d come after you didn’t show up yesterday afternoon.”
     I sat on my horse, waiting for an invitation to dismount. “Well, I had a prior offer and thought I’d take it.”
     “Ah,” she said. “You went to see Gail Sanders. What did she want?”
     “She wanted me to marry her, but I passed.”
     Kelly wasn’t sure if I was joking or not. “Knowing Gail Sanders, it really wouldn’t surprise me. Get down, you can meet my father.”
     Fred Atkins was walking over, scrutinizing me suspiciously. He was a short, but stocky man, reddish hair and beard, blue eyes. His daughter must have gotten all her features from her mother.
     Kelly spoke first. “This is Robert Constance, pa. I told you about him.”
     “Gunslinger, huh,” Atkins said.
     I had dismounted and walked over to them. “No, I’m not. I was a rancher, but ran into the same problem you’re fixing to run into. A band of thugs came and burnt me out. Killed my wife in the process.”
     “Yeah, Kelly told me about that. Figured you had gone to makin’ your living with your shooter.” He held out his hand finally and I shook it.
     “Robert, somebody paid off our note to the bank yesterday,” Kelly said, studying me with a very suspicious expression on her face. “We own our land free and clear now.”
     I nodded. “Well, then, that explains what’s going to happen. I wasn’t kidding about the problem you’re about to run into. Jim Perry is sending his men over here in the morning to wipe you out. He thinks if he can stomp on you, Mr. Atkins, that the rest of the settlers will leave on their own. And since he won’t be able to get your land through foreclosure now, he has to run you off and scare the others into leaving, too.”
     Kelly groaned. Fred Atkins just stared at me. “Are you sure of that?”
     “The man who told me is under a death sentence if he lied.”
     He rubbed his jaw. I glanced at Kelly. She looked worried and was gnawing on her lower lip. “Do you have any suggestions, Mr. Constance?”
     I said to Kelly. “Have you got a fast horse?”
     “A pretty good one, yes.”
     “Can you get to all the other settlers today and warn them?”
     “Yes.”
     “Have them get here tonight and we’ll make plans.”
     “Ok.” She started to run off, then looked back. “Oh, and thanks again for the rifle.”
     “Take it with you.”
     “I intend to.”
     She headed for the corral. My eyes met Atkins. He was some worried, too. “Can we stop them, Constance?”
     “We can try, Mr. Atkins, we can try.”

     The men from the other ranches began showing up in mid-afternoon. Shorty Dolan, Arthur Smuckers, Louis Arbuckle, Terrell Thompson, Claude Raymond…I didn’t remember all the names, but I met them when Atkins introduced them. Dolan—whose name fit his stature, he couldn’t have been more than 5’1” tall—in effect asked me the same thing Atkins had.
     “Who told you this, Constance?”
     “Homer Kragan.”
     I had several men stare at me, incredulous. “And you believed him? Aw, man, Perry will probably wipe the rest of us out while we’re here.”
     “That’s possible, I suppose,” I replied. “But let me ask you this: if you put a gun to Homer Kragan’s head and told him ‘If you’re lying to me, you’re going to get a bullet in the brain,’ what do you think Kragan’s reaction would be?”
     Dolan looked at me critically. “Yeah. Kragan would sell his own mother to save his own hide.”
     “That’s the way I read him, too, so I believed him. I think he’s tired of being Perry’s lackey and he sees an opportunity to get out from under his thumb.”
     Atkins told the men that he owned his land now, that the note had been paid.
     “Well, that’s great, Fred,” Claude Raymond said. “Where did you find the money to do that?”
     Atkins shook his head. “I didn’t. Got an envelope from the post office yestiddy with my deed in it. Paid up in full. Kragan signed it, notarized it, all legal.”
     “Who did that?”
     Atkins shrugged. “Haven’t the foggiest. I ‘spect Kragan mighta done it, ‘specially if what Constance here is sayin’ is true. Banker’s hopin’ we can put a stop to Perry.”
     “Yeah. Most of us have notes on our land, too. If we skedaddle or Kragan forecloses, he won’t get none o’ that money and Perry will get the land. Perry sure ain’t gonna pay him nuthin’.”
     Fred Atkins replied, “That about sums it up.” He looked at me. “You got a plan, Constance?”
     “How many more are coming?”
     “Well, there’s Hoot Grimes, and Jimmy Morgan…couple others, prolly, if Kelly can find them.”
     “Let’s wait till they get here, then I’ll tell you what I’ve got in mind.” I grinned. “You may not like it too much, Fred, but I think it will work…”
 
     By 10 PM everybody had come whom we thought would come—ten in all, including me, not including Kelly. But she listened in on the plan. In fact, she was going to have a role to play, if everybody went along with my idea.
     “We ain’t fighters, Mr. Constance,” Jimmy Morgan said. He was a sandy-headed fellow who couldn’t have been more than 25. “I got a wife and a baby. I cain’t afford to get killed.” A few others nodded.
     “You’re going to fight for your dream, gentlemen. But I understand if you aren’t prepared to do this. If you want to go home, then do so. No one will hold it against you. Frankly, it shouldn’t be too dangerous if we pull it off the way I have it in mind, but there will be lead flying and some of you could get hurt. There are no guarantees. But please, if you want to go, do so now so I’ll know how many men we have to work with.”
     Nobody moved. Everybody glanced at Jimmy. He was in angst, but he said, “Well, I reckon Sarah would never forgive me if I was to go home an’ look like a coward. You’re right, Mr. Constance, we got to fight for what’s ours and what we believe in.”
     “All right. Let me tell you what I have in mind. They’ll be coming up the path to the house. We’ll need to keep them bunched together. If they spread out, it will be much more difficult.…” I looked at Kelly and smiled, and as I explained what I had in mind, her eyes got big, then she smiled in return….
     “No, I don’t like it,” Fred Atkins said in a huff.
     “Well, I do,” his daughter responded. “So that’s the way it’s going to be.”
     The rest of the men grinned. “And we all thought Fred ran this here ranch,” Claude Raymond said, and everybody laughed.
     “Do the best you can, men. We might be able to get out with no shots being fired, but I’m not sure. When I open up, you do, too, and don’t be nice. Believe me, they won’t be…”
    
     Same night. Jim Perry talking to his men. About 15 rough cases. “Burn ‘em out. Everything they’ve got. Don’t hurt the cattle and horses, I want them. Kill Atkins and the girl if you have to, but avoid that, if possible. But that drifter, Constance. I want him and I want him bad. Bring him back, alive if possible, dead if not. But don’t come back without him or I’ll nail every one of your hides to the wall…”

     Dawn the next morning of what was going to be a beautiful day. Birds were already chirping in the trees, there was a soft dew on the ground, and the air was as fresh and as clean as mountain air can be. The sun shoved its rays over the hills and shone brightly on the quiet, still home of Fred and Kelly Atkins.
     Except Kelly was out front, feeding her chickens. Dressed to kill. Maybe literally.
     She heard them coming. A troop of horses rumbling up the trail. Fifteen men. Around a curve, then up a sloping hill. “All right, boys, let’s do it,” Kelly heard one of them say.
     But she moved towards them and they all stopped, looking at her. Staring at her. Ogling her.
     Kelly was dressed in a very, very short pair of cut off jeans, the bottoms sliced off even with her crotch. The shirt she was wearing was unbuttoned low enough to, um, attract any normal male’s attention, and she had tied the two halves of bottom of the blouse together just under her breasts, showing everything below down to her waist. A regular hillbilly slut if there ever was one.
     “Howdy, boys,” she said. She gave them a pixy smile. “Did you come to see me?”
     The 15 horsemen rode a little closer, all of them eyeballing her. The man in front, Whitey Malone, pushed his hat back on his head, smiling. “Well, Miss Kelly, you shore do look fine this morning, mighty fine. But I’m sorry, we’ve got our orders from Mr. Perry. We’re gonna have to burn down yore place here. Mr. Perry, he wants his land back, you see, and you and your pa are just gonna have to move on.”
     “Burn us out?” Kelly wailed. “That’s not very nice.” Then she gave them another suggestive smile. “You don’t really want to do that, do you. I’ve got a better idea, fellas. My pa has gone to Culver City and probably won’t be back until tomorrow. I don’t really have a lot to do today…” Still smiling, she started to untie the bottom portion of her blouse.
     Fifteen pairs of eyes were transfixed on that blouse. And none of them saw me come around the corner of the house with a rifle in my hands.
     “All right, fellows. Fun’s over. Don’t do anything stupid and nobody will get hurt. Just drop your guns and ride on out of here.”
     Fifteen pairs of eyes—stunned eyes—turned towards me. Not surprisingly, several of the men who owned the eyes went for their guns.
     The place exploded. I fired three rounds from my Winchester before any of Perry’s men got a shot off, but by then I was rolling away. Atkins and ranchers appeared and started firing as soon as they heard my first shot. Two of them had been in the barn, two came from inside the house, two from the side of the house where I appeared, two from the other side of the house, and three from hiding places across the road. Perry’s men were caught in a crossfire and they were falling fast.
     “That’s enough! Don’t shoot any more! We surrender!” The firing ceased. Seven of the Perry men lay on the ground, dead or wounded, another two had been clipped. Two of the ranchers, Thompson and Dolan had minor wounds, but nothing serious.
     I stood up, and chambered another bullet. “Now you ya-hoos drop your guns and get these men off the ground and ride out of this valley. I suspect that you don’t want to see Jim Perry and tell him you were outfoxed and whipped by a bunch of greenhorn ranchers. And a woman. If I ever see any of you again, I’ll fill you so full of lead your next of kin will be able to start their own mine. Got it?” I motioned to the men on the ground.
     The remaining Perry men dropped their guns. Several of them dismounted and started loading the dead and wounded onto their horses. “Kelly, get their guns.”
     Kelly had re-tied her blouse and walked over to pick up the guns. She tossed each one back towards the house. She gave the men a glance. “Sorry, guys, better luck next time. Only ‘next time’ better be somewhere else because if I ever see you on our land again, I’ll put so much lead in you that you’ll be able to start two mines.”
     “Cain’t we at least have our guns?” Whitey asked.
     I said to Jimmy Morgan, “Jimmy, get over here and unload these guns. Claude, help him, will you?” Then to Perry’s men. “Empty your gunbelts of bullets. You can have your guns, but no ammo.”
     They grumbled but with about 10 rifles pointed at them, they didn’t have much choice. “Mr. Perry’s not going to like this,” Whitey Malone countered.
     “Then I suggest you get as far away from him as possible.” I think they thought that was a good idea.
     Fred Atkins said, “Do you want me to check their saddlebags for ammo, Constance? I never trust a rattlesnake.”
     “Yeah. Get it all. Maybe they got some Winchester ‘73s that Kelly can have for her new rifle.”
     In a couple of minutes, Jimmy and Claude finished unloading the guns and all the gunbelts were empty, too. Fred had found a few boxes of bullets, but not many. Kelly, Jimmy, and Claude gave the men their guns back. “Now. What are you men going to do?” I asked the men.
     “Ride out of the valley,” one of them said.
     “Be glad you’re still alive.”
     “Yeah.” They turned and rode off, heading away from River Bend. They were hired gunmen. They knew when to cut their losses and get out. There’d be another job down the road somewhere.
     I breathed out and uncocked the Winchester. Kelly squealed and ran over to me and hugged me, swinging us around and around. I almost fell over. “We did it! We did it! We did it! Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.” And she planted a big kiss right on my lips.
     I smiled at her. “Remind me to help save your land more often.” And she crinkled her nose at me.
     Her father said, “Kelly, git in the house and git some clothes on. Enough is enough.” Kelly pouted but went inside.
     I grinned at Fred. “You’ve got to admit, she played her part real well.”
     He looked disgusted. “A little too well, if you ask me.” And the rest of us laughed.
     “Mr. Constance,” Jimmy Morgan said, “We sure do appreciate what you done for us here. We’d be a fer piece on the way to losin’ our ranches if you hadn’t helped us.” A murmur of agreement from the rest of the men.
     “Well, it’s not over yet, but I’m glad we stopped this attack.”
     “What do we do next?”
     Then I sighed. “I’ve got one more thing to do, guys.”
     “What’s that?”
     “Stomp one more snake…”

     I rode into River Bend about an hour later. People were up and about and I even had a few of them wave at me. I rode to the bank; it wasn’t open yet, so I thought I’d just go across the street and have a bite to eat while I waited for Kragan. But as I started for the restaurant, I saw Jim Perry come out of it. And he saw me. And he knew the jig was up.
     I stopped about one-third of the way across the street. Perry came towards me and halted about 40 feet from me. People had given us a wide berth, but they were watching. Perry looked like he was about to say something, but that was simply an attempt to distract me. There was nothing to say, he and I both knew it, and I had no intention of letting him divert my attention from the issue at hand.
     He went for his gun. He actually got a shot away. It ended up about two feet in front of him. And then he fell, face-first, on top of it.
     I holstered my gun and went on to the restaurant. I was hungry.

     The sheriff, a Perry man named Barnes McGill, came to the diner while I was eating. He sat down across from me, leaned back, pushed his hat up, and scrutinized me real closely.
     “You left Jim Perry’s body out there on the street,” he said to me.
     “I’m not the garbage collector in town.”
     He grunted. “Mister, do you realize that, in less than 48 hours, you have completely destroyed the Perry empire and turned River Bend upside down? Jimmy Morgan just showed up telling everybody what happened out at the Atkins place this morning. You’re a regular keg of dynamite, ain’t you, feller.”
     I sopped up some egg yolk with my toast. “Sheriff, I didn’t pick a fight with anybody. But if somebody takes a slug at me or draws on me, I’ve got a right to defend myself. And to help my friends. You’d do the same, wouldn’t you?”
     He just stared at me for awhile. “Are you planning on leaving town?”
     I shrugged. “I haven’t thought farther ahead than this piece of toast.” That wasn’t totally true, but it was none of his business. “You worried about your job now that Perry isn’t around to bankroll your elections any more?”
     He didn’t like that. “Why don’t you just ride, mister? Or I might find a reason to run you in. Like you’re stirring up the dust on the street and littering.” He stood up. “Put some miles between you and River Bend, you hear? I’ll be watching to make sure you leave.”
     I finished my breakfast, took a last sip of orange juice, and pushed my plate away. “Sheriff, I’ll leave when I’m good and ready to. It might be the better part of wisdom if you left town. I’ve got a feeling I’ve got more friends in River Bend than you do, especially since the only one you did have is now dead. Stay off my back, you don’t scare me a bit.”
     His face turned red with anger, but he just turned and stormed out of the diner. One old-timer was sitting at the bar. He had heard my conversation with McGill. “You gonna stick around a little longer, ain’t ye, mister? We got a few more skunks that need to be rooted out.”
     I gave him a wry grin. “If one of ‘em lifts his tail at me, I’ll shoot it off.”
     “You do that. You done good so far.”
     I walked to the bank. It was open now. I went in, asked to see Kragan, and was immediately shown into his office. He looked ten years younger than he had yesterday, but he still had that obnoxious cigar in his mouth.
     He actually stood up this time and shook my hand. “I heard what happened out at the Atkins place and saw what you did to Jim Perry. This whole side of the river is in total chaos now, you know that?”
     “Perry didn’t have a will?”
     “Nope, no family.”
     “Good heavens. Did he think he was God or something?”
     “Yep. Didn’t matter, though. He didn’t own the land so he couldn’t very well will it to anybody.”
     “So the land belongs to you now, I suppose.”
     He shrugged. “Well, no, not really. It belongs to anybody who buys it.”
     I stood up. “You going to be here all day? I’ve got a buyer for you. I think.”
     His eyes narrowed. “Yes, I’ll be here. Who’s the buyer?”
     “I’ll let you know soon.” With that, I walked out of the office.